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Template talk:BW episode
Color On color. This has been bugging me with several of the templates for awhile. First off, I'm a professional designer in addition to working in video post, and have designed a number of websites. One thing that's tempting but you have to stay away from is bright, saturated colors taking up significant screen real estate. The reason is headaches. I kid you not, if you look at these things long enough, your head starts to throb. I didn't like the "institutional green" either, but we need to steer these templates into a muted direction. Think "mature" colors. I have no favorites, but there are some colors associated with the shows already through the title sequences that could be tied into. The Bionic Woman has a lot of tan, for instance. SMDM has Steve's red running outfit, but the red of the episode box is too bright. Bright colors generally work well as borders, strokes and text links. As soon as you fill an area with a bright color, you get into trouble. --Major Sloan 21:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC) :I agree bright colors can get annoying real fast. The shades of red on the SMDM boxes look okay to me, and I've seen it on a few different screens. But feel free to go ahead and experiment. My blue choice for Jaime was a reflection of her jumper she wore during her and Steve's first bionic run. But again, if you have other ideas, feel free to tear it up. After all, that's what the Sandbox is for. — Paul (talk) 21:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC) ::I'm loathe to admit it, but I don't understand the sandbox- the link says it's for experiments, I use "show preview" for most, templates of course may play differently when real articles reference them. How does it work? Does each user have their own?--Major Sloan 22:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC) :::If you'd rather stick to using the "preview" that's fine, too -- that's what I do. But to use the sandbox, you would create a whole new template and call it something like Template:BW_episode_test or Template:BW_episode_MajorSloan and then in the Sandbox you would check your results by creating a new article that referenced the template. You may also create your own "sandbox" such as CzechOut did (he really only created another userpage), and call it something like User:Major_Sloan/sandbox. — Paul (talk) 22:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC) ::::I agree entirely. What about something like this? —Scott (talk) 01:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC) :::::I like it! But maybe with a richer blue outline? — Paul (talk) 01:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC) ::::::Here's one within websafe: 99CCFF as back, 003399 as front. A lighter touch is better if we can cut loose websafe. --Major Sloan 02:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC) :::::::Cut it loose and try some lighter shades. I'm all for experimentation. Scott's above is real easy on the eyes but not quite blue enough. I was even toying with turning Jaime's main title suit into the color scheme. — Paul (talk) 23:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC) :::I have a real problem with blue, as that's the dominant hue associated with the telefilm infobox. The original idea was to give each type of fiction — film, BW episode, SMDM episode — its own, easily-identifiable color scheme. In no way should the BW episode box be blue, nor should the main text area of an infobox be blue. Doing so makes the "blue links" hard to see. (On the film infobox, the background is an almost-white-blue.) To my eye, these boxes now have too many individual header stripes. Having that many at the top of the box, not to mention the absolutely unnecessary title card graphic, makes the whole thing a) bigger and b) top heavy. The important information in the box isn't the stuff on top against a dark background; it's the stuff on the bottom, against the light background. Moreover, the overuse of ALL CAPS in headers makes the thing seem "top-heavy" and "shouty". The all-caps simply have to go; when people encounter block after block of ALL CAPS, they stop reading. CzechOut ☎ | 18:37, 3 February 2008 (UTC) ::::Wait a minute, you have a problem using blue for 58 episode boxes beacuse 3 movie boxes are already using it? I don't want to turn this into a numbers game but I find that amusing. :) ::::Your SMDM colors are perfect because they reflect existing, identifiable aesthetics for Steve; red and white is dominant throughout his main title, his jumpsuit, and his action figures -- it was an intuitive choice. ::::Green for Jaime seemed an odd choice. There's no green in her main title, no green in either of her action figures, and it's not a color she wears in the show. Blue, on the other hand, is all over the place; her main title (95% text, wire-frames, running pants, stripe on her top), her second issue action figure, and her very first jumpsuit run with Steve. Blue seemed the way to go and I propose we go back to it and let the movies have the green (or the tan, the pilot really deserves the tan scheme, I mean, Steve's first mission colors!). ::::You've reverted most of my other changes and that's okay, I understand your reasoning. The title cards provide an instant ID stamp; we may be Bionic gurus but we must consider the newbies, thanks for keeping them. They just look cool, too, you know? ::::And frankly, the info boxes themselves are aesthetics. Nothing about them is necessary. The only thing necessary on article pages is the information and perhaps an image to help inform that information. Everything else is window dressing. Because, you know, it looks cool. — Paul (talk) 10:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC) :::::See, to me, blue (especially sky blue) is a color I don't in any way associate with Jaime Sommers. You say the action figures came with that color of outfit, but they came with a LOT of outfits. I associate earthy, borderline "hippy" clothes with her. Green is the dominant color of the (non-medical) part of the title sequence because it starts on a parachute fall through trees, her classroom is green-dominant, and the whole thing ends with a bionic jog and jump through a forest. (Oh and there's green in her title sweatsuit top.) I suppose if you wanna say that the box should in some way reflect the standard orignal doll outfit, that we could make this thing a white box, with the stripes the alternating colors on her top: orange, yellow, green, brown.) :::::But again, my main reason for avoiding blue is because of the links. Most of the text in the text box will be (ultimately) blue-linked. Blue-linked text on a blue background looks awful, and is sometimes illegible. The only reason I went that way with the film boxes is because I found a very very pale blue-white, and, honestly, because it wasn't going to be affecting that many pages. :::::All that said, I do think I like the idea of this tan for the movies better than for her; I just did tan here cause that was what was suggested during the course of the discussion. CzechOut ☎ | 16:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC) :::::::) C'mon, CzechOut, there's no way you're going to convince me that green in any part dominates the main title. We open with blue and red text, blue text types across Jaime's face, blue text accompanies blue wire-frame to show the bionics, then she's running with her super cool blue pants. Oh, and the running scene is the only time we see green forest -- the other moments you cite are all in black and white or otherwise muted for effect. As for the dolls, I'm talking about the two wide-released which were the white/striped top and the blue jumper. As for your link concern, it doesn't have to be a dark blue; Major Sloan's light blue body with darker headers looked pretty good, it just needed tweaking. And yes, if you like my other idea and go the white striped top/blue pants route, I'm all for it (this was one of the reasons I split those headers -- each would be corrolate to a color stripe! But I never got around to testing it). — Paul (talk) 17:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC) :::::::::This discussion is so fascinating to me because we have such different perceptions of the same piece of video. If you really look at the non-medical sections of the sequence — and, by the way, I don't think the blue text and wire-frames of the medical section "counts", as its common to both shows — the background hue really runs to greens and yellows. The green of the forest, the green/gold of the classroom, the green of the shelving behind Rudy, the green of the tennis court bleachers. Virtually every scene of the "I've got bionics!" bit of the sequence has her against some kind of green/yellow background. I had actually never noticed the "super cool blue" jumpsuit before you pointed out, and even then, i had to watch the title sequence twice to really see it. It's fascinating to me that our two sets of eyes were pulled to two totally different things, both of which are actually present in frame. :::::::::In fact, now that I'm thinking about it more deeply, that Oscar/Jaime moment on the tennis court reminds me of what I was thinking back when I first chose the colors. You note that the SMDM box is "appropriate red" because of Steve's jumper, but that's really not why I chose the color. Both of the original color schemes were based upon the characters' professions, more than anything else. Rocket Red and Tennis Lawn (or "Black"board) Green. CzechOut ☎ | 19:10, 4 February 2008 (UTC) ::::::::::Hey, no fair going all clever with the Rocket Red and tennis/blackboard green references. Besides, my clothing analogy can beat your profession analogy any day! Profession, indeed. Crazy talk! Moreover, are you absolutely certain that you have a color monitor? Because that lawn is obviously blue. But it doesn't matter now anyway, because I love how the white/striped box is developing! Whoohoo!--look at that! I enjoyed this discussion, too, by the way. ;) — Paul (talk) 21:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC) Color testing area The infobox to the right will change as modifications are performed to Template:BW episode color test. This will allow us to test different color schemes without disturbing the main template. * Currently showing as of 18:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC) is a color scheme based upon the Jaime Sommers jumpsuit, as pictured above. | Guest = | Co = | With = | Producer = Kenneth Johnson | Writer = Kenneth Johnson | Teleplay = | Story = | Director = Alan Crosland | Production = 44404 | Original = 21 January 1976 | Prev = | Next = Angel of Mercy | Related ="Welcome Home, Jaime" "The Return of the Bionic Woman" "The Return of the Bionic Woman (Part II)" "The Bionic Woman" "The Bionic Woman (Part II)" }} Icons As for the icons, I left them in but I think they should be changed at some point. I thought about including similar symbology from the beginning. What stopped me was the question of how to approach the films. What graphic do you put in the film boxes to make all three types of box to come into harmony? The best idea I had was to use the Kenner logos, not the title cards. On the three pilot films and the SMDM series, use the Steve log, Jaime for the BW logo and for the three reunion films use the Oscar logo. But as I was thinking this, I decided it was redundant because if you got to an episode page the chances are extraordinarily high that you already know which show you were talking about anyway. And if by some miracle you got there by a random page flip, the box still contained links to the appropriate show's episode list. Having said that, I do appreciate the "hey, it looks cool" factor. I just hope we move into something that is a lil more irregularly-shaped one day, so that it's not rectangle upon rectangle upon rectangle. CzechOut ☎ | 16:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC) ::Well, apparently that time is now. Got a lil ambitious so I switched out the two title cards for the Kenner Logos. with Scarecrow's help, the things were coded correctly, so now we have a chance to see what it might look like to have things not quite so "rectangle-dominant" in that top part of the infobox. Plus, while the images of the two actors is obviously more juvenile than a photograph, the lettering of the program titles is much clearer than the reduced title card. Also, for what it's worth, the tan actually works with the Kenner BW logo. Lemme know whatcha think. CzechOut ☎ | 17:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC) :::Well, I love the idea of irregularly-shaped sidebars. I think rounded tops and bottoms would really set us apart from other wikis -- and that is easily accomplished with the right coding and a little photoshopping. I think the use of the Kenner logos is another awesome idea but they should be used for the toy pages (and the toy infobox should match that cool hot pink/purple color of the toy packaging). The reworked title card header Major Sloan created makes a much clearer show-stamp. I'm working on a BW counterpart. And both can be adapted into half-moons. — Paul (talk) 18:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC) ::::Fair enough, on the subject of where eventually to use these lil Kenner thingies. But that still leaves us with the question of what to do for the three reunion films. There is no unified logo for those films. Instead of using title cards full stop, might we not want to use cutout photographs of the main characters, as perhaps on User:CzechOut/Sandbox3? That way, on the reunion movies we could have a cutout of the two characters together, looking as they did in the 80s? CzechOut ☎ | 19:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC) :::::I really like these Kenner icons. There may be an issue with Kenner, ultimately, to so wholly rely on their icons, and obviously the BW version uses the SMDM font. Either way, I like the irregularity of the alpha channel, the clarity of the show title, and generally the concept of a badge rather than a titlecard reduction, which seems both unimaginative and uses the design at a scale it wasn't intended to hold up at. That issue is why I developed the rectangular badge on Alex's talk page, thanks for the support. If there is some interest, I'd be glad to make a png version with a non-rectangular alpha. --Major Sloan 03:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC) ::::::I must go to sleep, but first, this is just a quick mock up of how I think the icons should be used for the toy sidebars. Night! — Paul (talk) 23:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)